


Cows on Your Side

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [36]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Family Feels, Fix-It, Light Angst, Philadelphia, Post-Endgame, Road Trips, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.Last week of August, 1976: Roadtrip
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: The Long Way Around [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402126
Comments: 73
Kudos: 212





	Cows on Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyy everything's awful and on fire and this took way too long but I don't know what else to say other than how do you do a write when your heart is living entirely in your throat and you feel like you might collapse under the weight of all of your own thoughts at any given moment?
> 
> Asking for me. Just me. No friends. Just me. And all my thoughts.

**Day One**

The map wrinkled loudly as Darcy folded it down and turned sideways in the passenger seat. “Wait,” she frowned and looked down again. Her head tilted to one side. “Where wasn’t I talking to you?”

Steve mirrored her frown. “Uh…” he glanced over for a second before he returned his eyes to the road. “You stopped talking to me in Oklahoma and you didn’t start again until we got to New Mexico.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said cheerfully. “Because you made me cry.”

“I said I was sorry,” he reminded. “And I kept you from storming off into the desert.”

“I know,” she was still smiling when he glanced over again. “Regardless, I think we should take a different route. Just in case.”

He chuckled. “In case what? The area between Tulsa and Santa Fe is set up to make us fight with each other?”

“A lot of weird shit happens in the desert, Steve,” she reminded with a roll of her shoulders. “Gods and monsters fall from the sky, people who are secretly destined to be together end up at each other’s throats…”

He laughed again. “All true things.”

“And I’ve never seen the Rocky Mountains,” she went on. “So, if we take US 50, we can bypass the potentially cursed piece of the country and our own personal history and see some stuff we’ve never seen.” 

“Or find a new place to fight,” Steve added and reached over to lace his fingers with Darcy’s pulling the top of her hand over for a kiss.

“Exactly!” she beamed. “Cross-country road trips are all about discovery, my love.”

“Yesterday you said they were all about car snacks and 24-hour diners,” he said with a grin and a glance to the backseat where she had stocked a cooler full of drinks, fruit, veggies, and cubes of cheese beside two grocery bags of chips, pretzels, and things covered in bright orange cheese dust.

“They can be both,” she said without missing a beat. “It’s going to take us six days to get to Philly—so much time for discovery.” Her head tilted to one side. “Is there anything you want to see that we’d be missing if we stay on 50? Grand Canyon or Giant Ball of Twine?” She untangled their fingers and returned to perusing her map.

“I’ve seen both,” he laughed. “I’m good.”

The map folded back again, and she squinted at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he assured her.

“You’ve seen the world’s largest ball of twine?”

“Sure did.”

“Was it cool?”

He looked over, a half-smile on his lips. “No,” he said definitively. “It was a big ball of twine. I don’t need to see it again.”

Darcy managed to wait until they had pulled onto the highway before she reached back for the bag of grapes and declared their road trip officially underway.

**Day Two**

Darcy had only ever been to Las Vegas and was surprised to find the rest of Nevada ten times as beautiful and a hundred times less intense. It was also home to considerably more cows than she’d expected.

“Cows on your side.”

Cows that, to her delight, Steve was only too happy to point out.

“You’re playing the game wrong,” she giggled, glancing over from her place behind the wheel. “You’re not supposed to point out cows for _me_. It’s supposed to be cutthroat—every man for himself.”

Steve reached for the Styrofoam cup of coffee he’d started at the diner where they’d stopped for breakfast. “I like it better this way,” he said.

“Okay,” she said simply and nodded to his window. “Cows on your side,” she said automatically before she frowned. “Hold up. Are you just changing the rules to get me to point out your cows instead of my own?”

Steve hid his smile in his coffee. “Why would I do that?”

“Uh, so you’d win,” she scoffed. “Because I’m better at spotting them than you are.”

“Excuse you,” he laughed. “I have enhanced vision _and_ perfect situational awareness—”

“And an ass that doesn’t quit,” Darcy cut in. “And yet, I still beat you every time we play this game.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said and dropped his head, pretending to look for something in the glove box.

Darcy laughed again, shaking her head. “Oh man,” she glanced down at her barely-there belly. “Smudge, I hope you’re as good a liar as your daddy—it’s going to make your rebellious teenage years so much easier.”

Steve abandoned his rummaging and sat up. He draped his arm over the back of her seat and absently played with a dark curl that had escaped her ponytail. “Speaking of Smudge,” he said with a half-smile. “You feeling okay?”

She nodded. “So far so good,” she said honestly. Except that she felt more than good. She felt _great_ ; she had for weeks, much to her own surprise and the surprise of her doctor. There had been no morning sickness, none of the exhaustion her sister had complained of for most of her pregnancy. Just the opposite, in fact. She had more energy and felt more alert than ever. Even her usual end-of-summer allergies weren’t hampering her breathing.

But she _was_ hungry—hungrier than she thought she should be this early on. She hadn’t mentioned it to her doctor yet, and if Steve noticed that she was cleaning fuller plates lately, he wasn’t saying anything.

“Cows on your side,” she said, pointing to the upcoming pasture to their right. Her nose wrinkled. “Now wait. Who gets that point?”

“Me,” Steve shrugged. “It’s my side.”

“But I pointed it out—shouldn’t I get a point?”

“We can’t both get a point.”

“Half point?”

“You really want to keep track of half-points in addition to all your other rules?”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Amendment to the rules,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Wherein the object of the game is now to get as many points for the other side as possible. So when it looks like you win because you’re going to end up with more points, I will have actually won because I’m the one who pointed them out.”

Steve was not looking at her while he sifted through a handful of maps before he found Utah. “All I heard was…‘something something, Steve is winning.’”

She managed to hold a scowling squint for all of three seconds before he looked up and offered an innocent grin. She shook her head as her urge to smile won out. “You’re lucky you’re so cute.”

***

“Tell me something about yourself I don’t already know,” she said that night in a hotel room outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. Steve had wrapped his arms around her, and her nails were drawing long, lazy strokes from his chest to his navel and back again.

Above her, Steve sighed. “What do you think you don’t know about me?”

Darcy bit her lip in consideration. “What’s the…dumbest thing you’ve ever done?”

His laugh rumbled in his chest and made her smile. “I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time,” he said. “We’ve gotta check out by ten tomorrow.”

She giggled. “Come on. Off the top of your head, when you look back on Past Steve’s mistakes, what’s one that makes you want to grab him and shake him?”

“Hmm…” His other hand came up to brush her hair away from her face when she snuggled closer to tuck herself under his chin. “Okay, that narrows it down a little bit. I’d have to say…attempting to pursue a relationship with Sharon Carter.”

Darcy blinked. “Sharon Carter…” she squinted and pulled herself out of his arms to turn to look at him. “Any relation to—”

“Yup.” Steve’s eyes were focused on a point above the mirror on the far wall, not looking at her. “Great-niece.”

She tilted her head. “But you didn’t know…she was…” her lips dipped in a frown. “I mean, when you…”

“No,” he shook his head; he didn’t look particularly proud of himself. “I liked her before, but nothing happened until after I found out for sure who she was.”

She felt her eyebrows lift. “Yikes, dude,” she said with a half-smile. “That sounds…”

“Crowded?” he guessed, finishing her thought.

Darcy snorted. “Exactly. Sounds like there was at least one person too many in that relationship.”

“At least,” he echoed.

She was still smiling. “That’s kind of fucked up.”

It was his turn to raise his brow. “You sound kind of impressed.”

“I am,” she admitted with another laugh.

“What about you?” he asked as she cuddled back into him. “Aren’t you going to share some profoundly stupid thing Past Darcy has done in order to make me feel better?”

“Oh, baby, I don’t think anything outside of some time with a licensed therapist is going to make you feel better about _that_ tangled mess,” she started, relieved when he let out a choked laugh and curled his arms loosely around her again. “But…yeah, of course I’ve done stupid things. Profoundly, unbelievably stupid things that make me want to snatch up Past Darcy by the hair and lock her in her room.”

“Such as?”

She bit her lip again. “How about an ill-advised and torrid affair with one of my English professors?”

“Yeah, that fits the bill.” She could hear a smile in Steve’s voice when he started drawing on her arm with his fingertips again. “Are you going to tell me about—” he paused. “Him? Her?”

“Him,” Darcy answered pointedly. “Although there was this economics professor? Dr. Bradley? I would have done literally anything she asked me.”

“I think I’d prefer that story,” he said with another smile.

She snorted again. “There’s no story.”

“Don’t care, make one up and save it for my birthday,” he said, waiting while she laughed again before he asked. “But in the meantime, what happened with Doctor…”

“Taylor,” she finished for him and shook her head. “Oof. What _didn’t_ happen.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Soo dreamy,” she let out an exaggerated sigh. “Soo unethical.”

“Is that what finally killed the passion?” Steve guessed. “Your stringent commitment to ethics?”

“Oh no,” she shook her head against his chest. “I was a nineteen-year-old idiot who wanted to feel special—I didn’t care that he was breaking like, sixty different rules.”

“So, what was it?” he asked. “Another woman?”

“Yeah,” she scoffed. “Me.”

“Ruh-roh. He was married?”

“Married, three kids, never wore his ring.”

“Taylor, you dog,” Steve clucked his tongue. “What did you do?”

Darcy sighed. “I did what any strong, self-respecting woman would do.” She sighed. “I piled on the self-loathing, changed my major, and bolted in the opposite direction every time I caught a glimpse of him on campus.”

Steve’s fingers stilled. “Really?”

“Uh-huh.” She pulled back to look up at him. “Surprising?”

“Kind of,” he admitted. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I was a kid,” she reminded, not proud of the way her stomach still twisted at the memory of how she’d blamed herself for everything that had happened with her professor. Like she’d been the one who had pursued _him_ and not the other way around. How she’d switched to a Poli-Sci degree without hesitation just to avoid seeing him again. “An idiot kid who was way out of her league. Grown-up Darcy would have handled things much better—she’s a totally different person.”

“I’d hope so.”

She bit her lip. “Well, a mostly different person.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow. “Mostly?”

She grinned. “I still have a bit of a professor kink.”

“Ha!” Steve barked out the laugh before he shook his head. “I think it’s cute that you think I don’t know that.”

Her eyebrows dipped together as she felt a blush rise to her cheeks. “What are you talking about? I never told you that.”

He laughed again. “You didn’t have to. I’ve seen you watch me grading.”

It was her turn to giggle. “That’s not…” she let a futile attempt at a lie die on her lips. “I’d think you were sexy when you were grading whether I had a professor kink or not.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, unconvinced. “At least now I know the truth about why you pushed me to take the job in the first place.”

Her next laugh was more of a cackle. “Oh yeah,” she agreed without hesitation. “That was almost entirely self-serving. But don’t expect an apology.”

“I don’t want one,” he assured her, smiling when she stretched her neck up to brush her lips to his.

She traded him two more kisses, each lingering a little longer before she pulled away again. “Oh,” she forced her face to stay neutral before she went on. “I realize it’s a little late to be admitting this, but if you’re holding out hope that I’m somehow related to the indomitable Carter bloodline—” Steve’s eyes widened, and he seized her free arm with one firm hand. He flipped her onto her back and began to tickle her. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you,” she gasped out the words between her giggles.

He didn’t stop tickling her, laughing while he peppered her neck with kisses, until her sides hurt and she had tears in her eyes and their neighbor banged a fist on the wall above the dresser across the room, telling them to keep it down.

**Day Four**

They’d finished most of their snacks between Colorado and Pennsylvania, where they tallied cows and traded jokes and kisses while the wind blew Darcy’s hair around and the radio faded in and out of stations along the highway.

He hadn’t planned on stopping again before they found a motel with a vacancy, but Darcy had caught a glimpse of the sky outside the A&P when they’d stopped twenty miles east of Youngsville for gas and more beef jerky. It was an endless expanse of inky black and swirling blue, littered with more stars than they could ever see at home.

Steve had seen the way her mouth had fallen open and her head had tilted back farther to see as much of it as she could. He’d pulled off down the next empty country road so they could sit on the trunk and lean against the back windshield to stare up at the stars.

“You’d think working with Jane for three years I would have remembered some official constellations,” she mused after a few minutes of contemplative silence. “But I got nothin’.”

“Nothin’?” Steve echoed with a smirk. “Not even the Big Dipper?”

“Okay,” she conceded. “I know the Big Dipper. And obviously the Little Dipper,” she pointed them out as she named them. “And…Oh,” her hand moved again. “Orion’s Belt.” She dropped her arm again. “But that’s all I got.” He felt her eyes on him when she glanced sideway. “What about you?”

“Hmm,” he hummed in consideration. “I…know how to orient myself,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t know any of the actual constellations. At least,” he added, “no more than you do.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her grin. “I used to make them up,” she said. “Tell myself stories to go along with whatever weird pictures I could map out.”

“Like what?” he asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the silvery streaks of the Milky Way.

Darcy’s lips pursed in thought and her head tilted to one side thoughtfully before she pointed just south of the Little Dipper. “That’s Lady Fluffikins,” she said with confidence before she glanced back at him. “She’s the queen of the celestial cats.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“The Little Dipper is actually ladling some fresh cream out for her and her kittens.”

He smiled and rolled onto his hip so he could watch her while she scanned the stars. “Why isn’t she called Queen Fluffikins?”

“Because she’s humble,” Darcy answered almost immediately. “She doesn’t think a title’s important and she considers herself equal among the other star cats—even though _they_ all know she’s the queen.”

“There are other star cats?”

“Plenty,” she nodded seriously. “When I was a kid, cats were my drug of choice. Books, stuffed animals, printed on my Trapper-Keeper three years in a row…cats were my thing.”

Steve snorted a quiet laugh, content to listen while Darcy plucked freshly imagined constellations from the sky—Girl with Curious Hair, Giraffe Selling Pineapples, Sleepy Lobster—and brought them to life with little epitaphs for each.

“You’re going to be a great mom,” he said softly, when she’d finished the story of the Sleepy Lobster and his quest for the perfect soft bed.

Darcy looked over and bit her bottom lip. “I hope so,” she said, so quiet it was practically a whisper. Her left hand drifted to rest on her mid-section, just barely rounded beneath her high-waisted shorts.

But Steve didn’t have to hope. He knew exactly what kind of mother she would be—fun, creative, fiercely protective, _good._ When he told her all of that, Darcy closed the distance between them and brushed her lips to his in a kiss that was sweet and almost shy, and Steve felt himself fall in love with her all over again.

She slipped down the windshield a little and drew her knees up to rest her heels on the trunk. “If Smudge turns out to be a girl,” she said slowly, drumming her fingers lightly against her stomach. “Do you want to name her after your mom?”

“No,” he said, surprised at how easy of an answer it was. “That’s a lot to put on someone before they’re born,” he went on when she lifted her eyebrows in response. “That’s what she would’ve said, anyway.”

Darcy smiled. “She would have?”

He nodded. “It’s why she didn’t name me after my dad.”

She mirrored his nod. “Smart lady,” she agreed. “It’s a good thing you grew up without feeling like you had anything to prove and absolutely nothing you had to live up to, regardless of your name.”

He chuckled. “Yeah well, she did her best.” Darcy slipped her hand into his and twisted their fingers together. “We can name her after your mom,” he said after a moment. “If you want.”

But Darcy shook her head. “Oh, God, no. My mother hates her own name—she’d never forgive me. Plus, Melinda Grant?” She looked over and wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t do it for me.”

“I don’t think it sounds that bad,” he said amicably. “Do you have any other hard no’s I should know about before we start arguing?”

“Uh. Well. Hmm,” she frowned in thought. “Well, nothing too 80’s, I guess.”

“Examples?”

“You know,” she rolled her eyes. “Tiffany, Brittany, Ashley…and no Lisa.”

“What’s wrong with Lisa?”

“Nothing, it’s a lovely name and something like 85% of the baby girls born between now and 1985 are going to be named that or Jennifer.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “So, no family names and nothing that’s going to be too popular for the next ten years. What does that leave us with?”

Darcy’s nose wrinkled again in her contemplation. “Beyonce?”

Steve laughed so loudly that a small cluster of birds fluttered out of the nearest tree. “Beyonce Grant,” he repeated. “I think it sounds great.”

“Perfect,” she giggled. “Check that off the list. Start embroidering shit.”

“What if it’s a boy?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Barack Obama Grant?”

“Hmm, maybe something more contemporary?”

“Freddie Mercury Grant?”

“Bruce Springsteen Grant?” he countered.

“Compromise,” she suggested. “Freddie Springsteen Grant?”

It was his turn to lean over and brush his lips to hers. “I love it.”

**Day Six**

Darcy looked up from her cup of Rocky Road and studied her husband. For the third time in the last fifteen minutes, she watched him check his watch and scan the perimeter of JFK Plaza. “Are you okay?” she asked around a mouthful of cold chocolate and almonds.

He looked back to where she was sitting on the stone steps and smiled. “I’m great,” he said, unconvincingly.

“You don’t look great,” she assured him. “You look…nervous.”

Steve had no reason to be nervous. It was a beautiful day to be dragged around the sights of Philadelphia. They’d arrived at their hotel near sundown the day before. Just enough time to check in and order a pizza from the spot across the street before Darcy had dropped off to sleep halfway through her third slice.

When he’d suggested this trip back east, he had asked specifically if she would like to come back to Philly and show him around her favorite spots. She had, of course, and had promised a list of places as long as her arm to show him before they flew home in two days. There was a part of her—even though she didn’t want to say it out loud, afraid that it would sound too stupid, too corny—that was happy she hadn’t come back until she was pregnant. Like there was some way to she could share all the happy, sentimental feelings this city stirred up with her baby long before he or she had a chance to experience it for themselves.

They’d gone to the library first, walking off a gigantic breakfast sandwich from Brunic’s—extra provolone, thank you _very_ much—and Darcy had almost cried with relief that it smelled exactly like she remembered and that the window ledges were still wide enough to sit in and not part of some post-1990 renovation.

Once she’d had her fill of the smell of old glue and binding and had run her fingers over the worn cards in the card catalog and showed Steve the children’s section where she’d spent nearly every Saturday morning of her youth, they’d headed north to the Museum of Art.

“This is the first time I’ve been here without the steps clogged with people running up and down like an idiot,” Darcy had commented while they’d climbed them together.

Steve had glanced over with a grin. “We should warn the staff,” he’d suggested lightly. “They don’t know how good they have it right now.”

“Oh, but speaking of warnings,” she had added after a thought struck her. “I love those movies, so you better believe we’re going to see every single one.”

He’d only slung an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll hold you to that,” he had muttered against her hair before he pulled open the door and allowed her to go first inside.

“I’m not nervous,” he said now, shaking his head.

“Do…you have somewhere to be?” she guessed, glancing from his watch to his face again. “Because we can go—” Even though it didn’t make any sense for him to have other plans since he was the one who’d suggested they take a break from sight-seeing to visit the fountain and people-watch around the Love sign in the first place.

But he shook his head again. “I’m fine,” he promised and leaned over to brush his lips to hers. “Don’t worry about me.”

She laughed and kissed him again. “You’re not fine, you’re—” The words died as she pulled back and her eyes were drawn toward the fountain again. “Oh my God.”

Not the fountain itself, but the couple walking alongside. They were holding hands, but the young woman was walking along the fountain’s lip, a good three feet above her partner, clutching his hand more for balance than romance.

He was young too, with a mop of dark curly hair and a pair of large, achingly familiar glasses.

He’d had those glasses until she was in kindergarten.

Darcy felt the breath sweep from her lungs as her vision blurred. “Oh my God,” she whispered a second time, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again. She had to keep blinking because she was certain she was hallucinating. There was simply no way she was looking at her parents.

But they were still there when she managed to chase her tears away. She heard her mother’s loud, unapologetic cackle—not unlike her own, Darcy noted with a twist in her heart—saw her wide smile and the gap between her front teeth. Holding hands and giggling with Darcy’s father, who was looking up at her like he’d never seen anyone more beautiful in his life. He took the heavy brown and white camera from around his neck and snapped her photo, laughing when she stuck out her tongue.

She was aware of Steve beside her again when he gently moved a lock of her hair behind her ear and quietly asked, “You okay?”

She tore her gaze away from her parents and looked at him. “How did you know…” But when she looked back to make sure she hadn’t missed them, she saw exactly how he’d known. There was a bank across the street, displaying the time, date and day of the week beneath its sign. No year, but that would have been the easiest part to guess on. Something that must have been in the photograph she’d framed. Something she’d never noticed in all the time she’d spent looking at it. She’d only ever been looking at the smiling, baby faces of her parents. At Mindy’s hair—feathered and flipped and the same light brown as Lizzie’s. Aaron’s Phillies t-shirt. Thinking about how her dad said it was the day he knew he was in love with her mother.

She swallowed hard and looked back to Steve, sitting beside her, watching her expression. She felt another lump in her throat. “You did all this for me?” she asked in disbelief. “So that I could see them again?”

The corner of Steve’s lips twitched upward in a half-smile that was somewhere between sad and sweet and somehow still a little shy. “Yeah.”

She was torn between wanting to throw her arms around him, cover his face with kisses, and wanting to burst into loud, ugly tears. She settled for a weak, wet laugh and reached out to touch his cheek. “I don’t have anything to give you."

He leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Of course you do.”

Darcy was about to close her eyes and kiss him, letting the tears hit her cheeks, when she heard her mother’s voice from across the park. “Come on, Lewis,” she said with another laugh. “I’m starving.”

She looked back with another ache in her chest as Mindy hopped down from the ledge and gave Aaron a tug in the opposite direction. They were going to leave, go back to their date and that would be it.

But that was okay, she told herself. That was okay because she never thought she’d get even this much. This was enough, she insisted firmly in her head. This was so much more than she ever thought she’d have. This was—

Darcy felt her face fold in confusion.

“They didn’t take their photo,” she said softly before she looked at Steve. “If this is—” she looked back to the fountain and then to Steve again. “Why wouldn’t they…”

And then she saw it. The camera her father had taken from around his neck. He’d set it on the fountain’s ledge to help her mother down with both hands. They’d gotten distracted, talking in lower voices that Darcy couldn’t hear as they’d started off in the direction of a place to eat, and had wandered away without it.

Her heart started to race. They couldn’t forget that camera, she reminded herself. There was no way they would walk off without it because if they _had_ , there couldn’t be a framed photo of the two of them from this day on her mantle in Oakland. Not only that, but she remembered that camera. Her father had kept it long after they’d purchased other, trendier models. It lived on the shelf near his desk at home, the faded red, white, and orange striped strap dangling off the side. She remembered the heavy _click_ it made and the sound of his thumb turning the lever to advance the film. He’d even sent it to New York to have it repaired when Lizzie had knocked it off the kitchen table when Darcy was five years old.

She waited another long moment for one of them to remember and head back for it. But neither did. They’d almost reached the far end of the park before she got to her feet. Almost without thinking, she’d raced over and picked up the camera, vaguely aware of Steve trailing behind her, looking conflicted, before she started after her parents.

“Hey!” she called, forcing her voice to an intelligible volume. “Hey! Excuse me!” To her shock and relief, they both stopped and turned around, confused and still hand in hand. Darcy slowed her jog and came to a stop only a few feet away from them. Steve reached her only a second later, as she was holding out the camera. “I, um,” she coughed. “You forgot this. On the—” Awkwardly, she motioned behind her. “By the statue.”

“Aw, man, thanks,” her father said, reaching for it right away. “My brother would’a killed me if I lost this.”

Darcy heart twisted. _This was Joel’s camera?_ she wanted to ask but held her tongue and felt another lump rise swift and unforgiving in her throat. All at once, her father’s insistence on keeping it made so much more sense. It was 1976—in just two years, Joel Lewis would be dead.

“N-no problem,” she managed to choke out and smiled weakly. “Glad I caught you.” She was grateful for her sunglasses—they hid the way her eyes had gone glassy again.

Her mother’s shoulders dropped, and she shook her head with a little laugh. “And,” she gave Aaron’s shoulder a light smack. “The whole reason we came all the way down here.” To Darcy’s surprise, she turned back. “Could you take one of the two of us, please?”

She blinked. “What?”

“A photo,” Mindy clarified. “With the new statue.” Her smile brightened again, and she wrinkled her nose. “I just think it’s so kitschy, you know?”

“Oh,” she looked back over her shoulder and forced a laugh. “Yeah, I—I guess it is.”

“So, will you?” Mindy asked again, her thin eyebrows raised expectantly. “Take our picture?”

“No problem,” Steve answered for her smoothly when her voice stuck in her throat again. She was grateful for the steadying arm her draped around her shoulder as her father held out the camera again. “She takes the best photos.”

She took it from him again; it felt heavy and familiar in her hand and she looped the strap around her wrist once to make sure it didn’t crash to the ground in her unsteady grip.

The four of them— _I’m on a double-date with my parents,_ the bizarre thought zipped through her mind before she could stop it and drew an unexpected smile to her lips—crossed the park again to where the bold letters L-O-V-E popped bright red against the brown and tan backdrop of the city. Darcy watched in amazement as Aaron put his arm around Mindy’s waist and she draped hers around his shoulder. Mindy tilted her head to one side and they both offered bright innocent smiles exactly as they had in the photo on the mantle. She raised the camera to her eye, centering them in the viewfinder, unable to believe she’d missed the bank’s time and date stamp in the background all these years, and clicked the shutter.

“Beautiful,” she said as she handed back the camera. “One for the scrapbook.”

Her mother beamed and Darcy was struck by just how _young_ she was. Younger now than Darcy herself. If she thought too hard about it, it made her head fuzzy and her chest feel like someone was standing on it. She was going to need a nap after this.

Her father looked at her just a moment too long as he slung the camera’s strap around his neck. “You from around here?” he asked while Darcy stepped back, and Steve put an arm around her again.

She opened her mouth to lie but it came out, “Yeah, but I’ve been gone for a long time.”

“No shit,” her father grinned. “Where you from?”

“Northwood,” she said, surprising herself with a lie safe enough to keep her South Philly-raised father and Bryn Mawr-native mother from trying to guess too hard where they might have met her before. She smiled and leaned into Steve for another sip of his steadying strength, bopping her head in his direction before she added, “Had to bring this Brooklyn boy for a visit so he could see the greatest city in the world.”

“Brooklyn,” her father repeated with a half-smile, giving Steve an appraising look that _almost_ felt like she’d brought him home for parental approval before a date. “You still a Dodgers fan?”

Steve laughed. “Til the day I die.”

“Biggest goddamn mistake they ever made, taking that team to LA,” Aaron muttered, shaking his head sadly.

“You can say that again,” Steve agreed.

“Don’t tell him that,” Mindy broke in. “He _will_ say it again. And again and again and I will starve to death waiting for him to be done talking about baseball.”

Darcy giggled around the tightness in her chest. “Take that lady to dinner,” she instructed her father lightly.

Aaron echoed her laugh and held up his hands in defense. “She claims she’s takin’ me.”

“Only if you get a move on,” Mindy teased and pinched his side before she looked back to Darcy and Steve. “Thank you,” she said genuinely. “For the photo. I really do appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Darcy managed, torn between wanting them to stay right here, forever, and hoping she’d be able to catch her breath once they were out of sight. “It was no problem.”

“Enjoy the city,” Aaron said, mostly to Steve as they started to back away. He looked back at Darcy and titled the camera in his hand a few times. “And thanks,” he repeated. “For not letting me walk off without this.”

She nodded, another lump in her throat as she watched them link hands again and walk away. She waited until they’d be far enough away not to hear the catch in her throat before she called. “Oh, hey! One more thing!” They turned back, confused. “I’m taking him to eat later,” she nodded at Steve again and bit back a grin before she asked. “Pat’s or Geno’s?”

“Pat’s!” her mother exclaimed.

Just as her father called back, “Geno’s!”

They stopped and looked at one another in surprise before there was an explosion of opinions on who made a better cheesesteak, the rest of the world forgotten as they started away again at the beginning of an argument they’d be having for the rest of their lives.

Darcy watched them leave for good this time, not bothering to stem the tears that slipped down her cheeks. “Yeah,” she said to herself, smiling and shaking her head. “That’s what I thought.”

**Day Eight**

With six years of living-in-the-past under her belt, Darcy had gotten quite used to the sight of pay phones everywhere. It was rare to walk more than a block anywhere without noting at least a handful, and in the parking lot of The Dew Drop Inn there were two. Although, Darcy noticed upon closer examination, only one appeared to be functional.

“I can’t believe this place is still here,” she said lightly, getting out from behind the wheel of the rental car at the same time Steve shut off the engine of the Buick ahead of her.

The Buick had never looked better. Freshly washed and detailed, new tires and an oil change. She watched in amusement as Steve retrieved the car’s original plates from the trunk and screwed them on in place of the most recent California plates he’d borrowed back in January.

For the rest of her life, Darcy would not be able to say how they’d managed to hold onto a stolen car for six years without being caught. Maybe the dumbest of the sheer, dumb luck that had carried them this far, but nothing else.

“I can,” Steve answered her, standing up and pocketing the screwdriver. “Lehigh only closed a few months ago,” he reminded with a nod in the direction of the camp. “This is still a military town.” His shoulder moved with a shrug. “Gotta drink somewhere.”

She closed her door and came around to lean against the car. “Do you think Andrew Streatfield is going to still be around here, looking for the car we stole from him?”

“We didn’t steal it,” Steve replied easily. “We borrowed it.” He grinned. “I recall telling you we’d give it back.”

Darcy mirrored his smile. “You did,” she agreed before she added, “That feels like a million years ago.”

“A million years?” Steve scoffed good-naturedly. “It feels like you’ve been stuck with me for a million years?”

She laughed and waited for him to cross the small space between the cars so she could wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss. “I never felt stuck with you,” she said quietly. She was grateful he didn’t try to lie and say he’d never felt stuck with her either—because she knew he had, once upon a time. She knew it had taken a lot longer for him to let go of the plans he’d made that didn’t involve her, to shake off the anger and frustration of having his life rerouted once again by things out of his control. And she’d be the liar if she said she didn’t sometimes worry he still thought about Peggy, still wondered what might have been if he’d been able to get back to her instead of having to stay with Darcy.

Not often. Hardly ever, in fact.

But sometimes.

Steve dropped his hands to her hips and kissed her forehead before she pulled back and met his gaze. “Would 1970 Steve believe you if you told him how we’d be returning that car?”

He laughed. “No,” he said simply. “Not at all. 1970 Steve was a pretty angry guy,” he admitted. “I don’t think he would have wanted to listen.” His head tilted one side and he studied her face in the late morning light. “What about 1970 Darcy?”

“Ha!” she coughed. “Not a chance.” She bit her lip and thought for a moment. “If I could go back though and talk to the me who watched you steal this car this first time? I’d tell her to go a little easier on you.”

He smiled again, softer this time. “You would?”

She nodded. “And I’d tell her that you’re not as bad as you seemed at that point—and that as far as partners on a weird-ass time travel journey goes? She wouldn't find anyone better.” She leaned the small of her back against the passenger side of the rental car again, dragging Steve a step closer. “Anything you’d want to tell your former self?”

“Hmm,” he hummed in consideration. “I’d tell him to relax which, of course, he wouldn’t,” he began. “And I’d tell him that I know it might not seem like it at the time, but the girl in the passenger seat of this _borrowed_ car is actually the best thing that could have ever happened to him. And to be nicer to her,” he added with another smile. “Because he needs her a lot more than she needs him.”

Darcy rose up onto her toes and kissed him again. “I’m really glad we’re here together.”

Steve kissed the tip of her nose. “Me too,” he assured her. “But we should probably not linger too much longer. Someone’ll show up to start opening soon.”

Her heart gave another little twinge at the thought of saying goodbye to their faithful, borrowed Buick. She knew it was silly. It was just a car—and it had never actually been _their_ car. They would buy something new when they got home—something with four doors and _seatbelts_ for god’s sake—but she still felt a little sad, a little nostalgic, as she crossed back to the car and placed her hands on the trunk.

A hundred memories flew through her mind of the times she’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat and woken to the sound of Steve singing along with the radio under his breath. Of the way they’d taken turns sleeping in the backseat the first few weeks in Oakland—alternating who got to stretch out each night and who would try sleep in the front, kinked up against the dashboard. All the times they’d tossed the keys back and forth and the way she would feel just a little extra relieved when she saw the old girl parked outside of the diner or the hospital when Steve had come to pick her up after work. The drive home from Tahoe three years ago, drunk on love and each other—pulling off to slip into the backseat and make love in a flutter of giddy relief and new possibilities.

It was silly, but there was another lump in her throat when she pressed a kiss to her fingers and sealed it against the painted steel. “You were so good to us,” she said as Steve closed the driver’s side door one last time.

Their flight home left at two-thirty, so Darcy and Steve were somewhere over the heartland when the police called Andrew Streatfield to tell him they’d located his stolen car.

“Where did you find it?” he asked in disbelief after not a single lead in over six years.

“Uh…right where you left it,” the officer on the other end of the line said, sounding just as confused as the owner of the stolen vehicle. “Are you able to come down and get it?”

He was, and drove to the impound lot of the police department, surprised to find his car with 60,000 new miles on the odometer, but otherwise in better condition than he’d left it and with a note stuck in the driver’s side dash that read, _Thanks for the loan. This car saved our lives._

**Day Nine**

According to Steve’s watch, it was just after midnight when the plane slipped below the clouds and the lights of San Francisco came into view. He nudged the warm weight of Darcy, slumped against him, fast asleep.

“Hey,” he whispered, pushing back her hair and kissing her forehead. “We’re home.”

She was still mostly asleep when she smiled, barely opening her eyes. “Home,” she repeated.

He kissed her hair again and looked back to the window—the lights on the bay and the whole life they’d built together somewhere in the grid of houses and schools and hospitals.

Home.

**Author's Note:**

> The moment with Darcy's parents is probably a big fat stretch, but I was inspired when my husband pointed out a clock and calendar in an old photo of my mom and said 'If you went back in time, you'd know right where to land to see her again'. And since I'd gone the last 12 years looking at that picture and never noticing those things, I think the same could be said for Darcy. Right? Sure, why not?
> 
> Also, if you don't know the story behind the cheesesteak preferences of Mindy and Aaron, please enjoy this article: https://www.phillybite.com/index.php/travel/943-pat-s-vs-geno-s-philly-s-cheesesteak-debate. And if you're in the Philly area, PLEASE GO AND EAT A BRUNIC BREAKFAST SANDWICH FOR ME. (Pepperoni and egg with extra provolone has saved my hungover ass on more than one occasion.) 
> 
> \-----  
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly.
> 
> *kisses*


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